Peruvian police say they had been trying to board a flight to Spain carrying 11 kilograms of cocaine.

McCollum Connolly is Irish and Reid is British.

In ordering preventive detention for the two, Judge Dilo Huaman rejected defence arguments that they had been threatened with death if they refused to carry the drugs.

McCollum Connolly had previously been reported missing from her job on the Spanish holiday island of Ibiza in the Mediterranean, and well-wishers had launched a large-scale internet campaign to find her.

After their arrest, the women told British reporters they had been kidnapped by a drugs cartel, taken to Peru and forced to transport drugs.

But the claim was met with widespread scepticism and Peruvian authorities did not buy the story.

The pair was led into court in handcuffs, as photographers and Reid's British parents, who flew out in recent days to support her, looked on.

There was no word on a trial date.

Both women looked scared as they walked into court. They wore jeans and T-shirts, and had undergone a medical examination prior to their court appearance.